The present invention relates to a printing device, and a printing system including the printing device and a controlling device such as a computer connected to the printing device.
Conventionally, a printing system including a personal computer and a printing device connected to the personal computer has been known. In such a system, by running application software such as a word processing program, a drawing program and the like, text data, graphic data and the like is created. The created data is transmitted from the personal computer to the printing device, which prints out the data.
In such a system, a device driving program for controlling the printing device (hereinafter, such a program will be referred to as a printer driver) connected to the personal computer should be installed in the personal computer.
The printer driver is provided for individual printer, and it functions to convert data created by the application software to print data suitable for the printing device driven by the printer driver. Typically, with the printer driver, various pieces of data Including functions of the printing device, interface data, font data, control codes and the like can be set.
Recently, some printing devices are provided with sheet type setting units, with which a sheet type, e.g., quality of recording sheet (e.g., normal paper, paper for inkjet printer, glossy paper, OHP paper or the like), size of the recording sheet and the like can be set.
In particular, inkjet printing devices generally perform printing operation in different manner depending on the quality of the recording sheet. For example, a color printer utilizing cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks uses only the black ink when it prints out a black image on the normal paper. However, when a black image is formed on the glossy paper, the printing device uses only the cyan, magenta and yellow inks and dose not use the black ink. It is because the black ink does not dry quickly on the glossy paper, and the quality of the image is deteriorated if the black ink is used for the glossy paper.
If a printing system is constituted by the personal computer and the above-described printing device having the sheet type setting unit, some of the items of the sheet type data can be set either by the printing device or the personal computer (printer driver). Such a configuration is sometimes troublesome since a user may not know which setting is effective when a print operation is performed.
For example, if the setting in the printing device has priority, even through the user sets sheet type data using the printer driver on the personal computer, a printing operation is carried out in accordance with the setting in the printing device. If the setting in the personal computer has priority, then a printing operation is performed in accordance with the setting of the printer driver regardless whether the user changes setting on the printing device. Thus, intention of the user may not be reflected when the printing operation is performed, and a desired printout may not be obtained.
In particular, when the printing device is an inkjet printer as described above, and the black ink is unintentionally used for the glossy paper, the quality of the image is deteriorated. For example, when the glossy paper is placed on the printer, and setting of the printer driver referred to the normal paper, which has priority, the above problem may arise.